Getting Started with Kidblogs! {IBL}

"It's a big responsibility, you're the only ones in our school so far with personal blogs. Can you handle it?" You can imagine the intensity of fist pumps and quiet "yessss" under their breaths.

Today the children in Room 9 are embarking on a blogging adventure. Each child will have their own blog space on Kidblog that will be all their own. I know they expected to come to the lab and "get on the blogs already" but there is a lot to talk about first. We started with, and will continue to talk about being responsible digital citizens, how to write quality blog posts and quality commenting. It is very important to me that the children appreciate the responsibility of having a global audience and also understand what is and isn't appropriate to post for this audience.
The children will be supported to write, edit and publish their work but it will be their work. Their posts will be a true snapshot of who they are as writers at this point in their lives. By the end of the year we will be able to look back and see how much they have grown in our 10 months together! That sounds pretty awesome to me.

A note about KidBlogs...
KidBlogs is a blogging platform that allows teachers to set up accounts for their students under the umbrella of a classroom account. This means that I have complete control over what is posted to each blog. Before any post or comment appears online, I receive an email and then have the option to approve, deny, or edit the post or comment. If the post or comment meets our criteria, I approve it and then it can been seen by others. I moderate everything and choose what goes live.